Corporate Concentration and Technological Change in the Global Seed Industry

Sylvie Bonny

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Abstract: In the past three decades, the seed sector has experienced, and is now again experiencing, corporate concentration trends. The fallout of this consolidation is the subject of numerous concerns. However, the seed sector is rather poorly understood. Thus, it is useful to understand it better and to investigate the potential impact on the agri-food chain of the trend toward increased corporate concentration. The first part of this paper presents the main characteristics of the global seed sector, its stakeholders, and its size in the agri-food chain. Next, the corporate consolidation trends of the seed industry over the past two years are examined. The technological evolution of the seed sector is also briefly presented. In the last part of this paper, the fallout of recent mergers and acquisitions in the seed industry are analyzed. Opposing views are expressed on the impact of these mergers and acquisitions in the agri-food chain: while certain stakeholders worry about the risk of food power by the biggest companies, some others expect useful innovations.

Keywords: industrie des semences; secteur semencier mondial; firme semencière; concentration; chaine agro-alimentaire; biotechnologie; OGM; amélioration des plantes; agrochimie; prix des semences; diversité des semences; édition de gènes; agriculteur; économie agricole; controverse; changement technique; évolution technologique; firme multinationale; agriculture; chaîne agro-alimenaire; gmo; seed industry; filière semences; semence; ogm; secteur semencier; concentration agroindustrielle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-01593207v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Published in Sustainability, 2017, 9 (9), 25 p. ⟨10.3390/su9091632⟩

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Journal Article: Corporate Concentration and Technological Change in the Global Seed Industry (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01593207

DOI: 10.3390/su9091632

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